THERE can't be many leading men in Hollywood who have been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar and a Biggest Ass Kicker gong – but Ballymena-born Liam Neeson (63) can proudly list both achievements on his impressive CV.
When the Co Antrim man was up for an Academy Award in 1993 for his portrayal of Nazi-defying Second World War industrialist Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, few observers could have predicted that the 6ft 4 talent would go on to become one of the most bankable action movie stars of the 21st century.
However, to paraphrase Neeson's now immortal spiel from 2008's adrenalised sleeper hit Taken – the film that first earned him this fearsome reputation – we now know that Neeson is an actor with a very particular set of skills, skills acquired over a very long career that make him a nightmare for those who prefer to pigeonhole performers by genre.
Having worked as a Guinness delivery driver and forklift operator, the former boxer (a three-time Ulster champion, no less) famously got his start as an actor after a spur-of-the-moment audition at the Lyric theatre in Belfast.
A two-year stint with the Lyric Players led to a part as Lennie in Of Mice And Men at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, where Neeson was spotted by director John Boorman who cast him as a knight in Excalibur.
The 1984 film also starred Helen Mirren. The pair became an item, with Mirren helping the Ballymena man to secure an agent and Hollywood contacts: a string of supporting roles in American films followed, including parts in The Mission, The Bounty, Suspect, A Prayer for The Dying, and Dirty Harry: The Dead Pool.
In 1990, Neeson made an abortive attempt to become a leading man and action hero with the title role in Darkman, Evil Dead director Sam Raimi's superhero action misfire.
Playing this disfigured vigilante involved being masked for most of his scenes, along with undergoing extensive make-up work to create his character's severely burned features.
"That was a challenge and I did embrace it," he said when interviewed for the Darkman Blu-ray release last year.
"I was a lot younger of course. Nowadays, I'd say 'How long do I have to spend in the make-up chair?! Forget it."
However, it was his success in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List that finally validated the then 41-year-old Neeson as A Serious Actor.
Spielberg spotted Neeson while he was starring in a Broadway revival of Anna Christie alongside future wife Natasha Richardson (the pair married in 1994 and remained together until her death in an 2009 skiing accident).
"I did a screen test for Steven in 1992," the New York-based actor recalled at a 20th anniversary screening of the film in 2003.
"It was just he and I in a room. He had a video camera. I had learned some scenes from script. Two, three hours later, I thought, well, if I don’t get the part, I had this masterclass with one of the great cinematic storytellers in the world."
The masterclass certainly paid off. Post-Schindler, Neeson reinvented himself as a Hollywood leading man in the likes of Rob Roy and the stirring Irish rebel biopic Michael Collins – he even landed a major role in Star Wars prequel the Phantom Menace, a film every actor in Hollywood was desperate to be involved in right up until the moment it was actually released.
Of course, it does an actor no harm to be the best thing in a bad film, a bit of Hollywood wisdom that may well have been in the back of the Co Antrim man's head when he signed on for the lead role in the 2008 action-thriller Taken.
While the by this stage well-seasoned actor must surely have recognised the potential of the now iconic phone call scene in which his character Bryan Mills lays down the law to his daughter's abductors, it's doubtful that even Neeson himself could have predicted that the film would become such a runaway success at the box-office – nor that it would relaunch his career for a second time with its pair of sequels and a succession of other rough-and-tumble screen roles.
"That certainly was a shock," he said in an interview with NJ.com last year to promote thriller A Walk Among the Tombstones.
"I knew we had made a tight little European thriller, but when it became a hit we were all surprised, I more than anybody — and then everyone else started sending me action scripts.
"And they're still sending them, and I tell you, I'll run with that for as long as they want me."
Despite his enthusiasm, however, at 63, Neeson is clearly a realist. While promoting the thriller Run All Night earlier this year, the actor admitted that there's a definite time limit to his 'geri-action' antics.
"Maybe two more years – if God spares me and I'm healthy," was the quote reported by the Guardian.
"If I feel audiences saying, 'Come on, he's 62, enough is enough,' I’m very sensitive to that. If I pick up that vibe it will all stop and I'll start playing dads or grandfathers.
"But I keep myself pretty fit and my knees are still great. And it's fun."
His next big role in Silence, Martin Scorsese's upcoming drama about 17th century Jesuit missionaries, marks a definite change of pace for Neeson: the actor lost so much weight for the part that stories about his possible ill-heath began circulating in the press.
Whether a role requires make-up, extra muscle or a gaunt appearance, it's clear that the he's quite prepared to endure whatever is required for the job at hand – a 'can-do' attitude Neeson attributes to his upbringing in Ballymena, where he was awarded Freedom of The Borough in 2013.
"What I learned growing up was a work ethic," he told NJ.com last year.
"That's a real characteristic in the north, and my parents drilled it into my sisters and myself: Get a job, no matter what your profession is going to be. Get a job and provide for yourself and provide for your family.
"I'm lucky enough to be able to work in a profession that I love doing. And for all that I feel very blessed – every day."
LIAM NEESON: THREE TO SEE
Schindler's List (1993)
Neeson shines in his Oscar-nominated turn as German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who secretly liberated scores of Polish Jews by employing them in his factory and then smuggling them out of Germany. Shot in black-and-white by director Steven Spielberg, the film was nominated for 12 Academy Awards: Neeson lost out on Best Actor to Tom Hanks, who won for Philadelphia.
Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)
This reality-inspired Troubles-themed drama pairs Neeson with fellow Ballymena actor James Nesbitt as a reformed ex-con loyalist (Neeson) and a nationalist family man (Nesbitt) meeting up 30 years after a sectarian atrocity as part of a post-ceasefire peace and reconciliation programme. However, reconciliation is the last thing on one of the men's minds. It's powerful stuff, with the tense two-handed climax of this Oliver Hirschbiegel-directed film ranking among the best work by both men.
The Grey (2011)
It's men – and, eventually, man – vs wolves in this entertainingly bleak Ridley Scott-produced survival thriller, which sees Neeson's rugged Irish American 'wolf sniper' John Ottway and a group of oilmen battling lupine stalkers in the frozen Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash. For the climactic scene in which the doomed Ottway pens a goodbye letter, director Joe Carnahan urged Neeson to draw upon his grief over the recent death of his wife Natasha Richardson.
